STI571 Removal Induces Apoptosis in BaF/ BCR-ABL Resistant Cell Lines

摘要

STI571, a BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor, induces apoptosis in Ieukemic cells specifically. Cell lines resistant to STI571 can be generated from sensitive lines and the main mechanism of resistance in these cases is an overexpression of the BCR-ABL protein. In this work, we investigated the apoptosis in murine BaF/BCR-ABL lines resistant to 1 and 2 fiM of STI571 after growth with or without STI571. Both resistant cell lines exhibite mitochondrial and membranar signs of apoptosis detected by Annexin V and DiOC6 probe respectively after 3 days of STI571 removal as well as an increasing in caspase-3 activity. We conclude that STI5 71 removal induces apoptosis despite the high level of BCR-ABL expression.